Wayback Wednesday: Revisiting My NBA Live 2003 Roster Updates

This is Wayback Wednesday, your midweek blast from the past! From retrospectives of basketball games and their interesting features, to republished articles and looking at NBA history through the lens of the virtual hardwood, Wednesdays at the NLSC are for going back in time. This week, I’m taking a look back at my old roster updates for NBA Live 2003.

I haven’t maintained a current season roster update for any version of NBA Live – or any basketball video game period, for that matter – since the 2013 season, when I was still regularly working on NBA Live 2005 through 08. That’s a little over eleven years at this point, which is scary because it doesn’t feel like it was over a decade ago! To that point though, it’s been over twenty years since I released current roster updates for NBA Live 2003 PC. Sure, the maths and the date on the calendar checks out, but it just doesn’t feel real sometimes!

In any case, since it’s been some twenty years since I wrapped up those 2003-2004 roster updates for NBA Live 2003, and the once far-off 2023-2024 season has come to a close, it seems like a good time to reflect on that project from the heyday of NBA Live modding (or patching, as we called it at the time). Roster mods have come a long way since then, and indeed, it wasn’t long after NBA Live 2003 that I committed to making more detailed current season updates with the help of various contributors. Let’s take a look back…way back…

I’ll begin with the installation of those roster updates for NBA Live 2003. As many roster makers were doing at the time, I distributed my mod with a setup file, compiled using the freely available Inno Setup. Not only did this save the end user from having to extract the files to the correct location – thus simplifying the installation process – it also offered extra compression to keep the file size down; a particularly useful feature in the days of dialup internet. On top of that, it simply looked more professional! The drawback is that the setup file didn’t always detect the correct paths for the game and Documents folders, so this practice has actually been largely abandoned over time.

My final 2004 season update for NBA Live 2003 was accurate as of April 17th, and included Playoff rosters, updated brackets that replaced the default teams in Playoffs mode, and some final ratings and data fixes. It also includes an announcement that it would likely be my last release for NBA Live 2003, as I was burned out on working on roster updates for both it and the now far more popular NBA Live 2004. I did end up handing off the update to someone else in the community, which was a tradition that our founders began when they moved on to the next game. Indeed, when I took over the NLSC, I also ended up handling Lutz’s NBA Live 2001 roster for a while.

Because the roster doesn’t include any art mods – more on that in a moment – the setup file for my NBA Live 2003 update generally didn’t misplace the save folder, as it only needed to detect the location of the Documents folder via the registry. To that end, it still works in Windows 10, and I’m guessing Windows 11 as well. Unfortunately, the save folders in NBA Live 2003 PC were still using slot numbers beginning with 000, rather than their actual names. This meant you needed to advise gamers which folders would be overwritten by your roster, so that they could create backups or save them to a different slot to avoid losing them. This wasn’t an issue in NBA Live 2005 onwards.

That final NBA Live 2003 update contained four rosters: active Playoff rosters, final regular season rosters, opening night rosters, and a tweaked version of the latest roster update, using formulas devised by community member DK. The first two rosters are basically identical; that may seem redundant, but had I continued releasing updates throughout the Playoffs, it would’ve provided a choice between those lineups and ones accurate as of the end of the regular season. As I’ve said before, I wasn’t a fan of the Tweaked rosters due to the issues they caused in Franchise mode and my scepticism of their effectiveness, but they were requested and expected, so I ultimately obliged.

So, let’s talk about the NBA Live 2003 roster updates themselves! Once again, I kept updating the game for the 2004 season, right through to the beginning of the Playoffs. This meant adding the famous Class of 2003 to the game, though of course back then, they were all young men (including some high schoolers) with plenty of potential. It’s always important to err on the side of caution when adding a new rookie crop, as they haven’t yet proven themselves at the NBA level. I was always leery of overrating the rookies, even if they were branded generational talents as LeBron James obviously was back then. In hindsight, I was honestly too harsh when rating the Class of 2003.

For example, in that final update, LeBron is rated 86 Overall. That’s not too bad, as LeBron had a fine rookie year but shot the ball poorly, and wasn’t as dominant as he’d become. However, Carmelo Anthony is 81 Overall, which is lower than Andre Miller (88) and Marcus Camby (85). Dwyane Wade is just 77 Overall, ranking him behind Brian Grant (81), Caron Butler (82), and even Samaki Walker (78). Even though his explosion in the Playoffs was yet to come, that’s still extremely underrated! Chris Bosh (81), Kirk Hinrich (76), Chris Kaman (77), and Josh Howard (74) are a mixed bag as far as accuracy, at least when compared to certain other players that season.

As such, in critiquing my old work, I’d have to say that I could’ve and should’ve done a much better job of updating the ratings throughout the season. Although I’m very much aware of how the importance of Overall Ratings can be exaggerated, if they’re noticeably higher or lower than they should be, then it’s usually a sign that there are inaccuracies in the individual ratings. I remember being far more diligent with my updates for NBA Live 2005-08 – though, perhaps I need to revisit them to confirm that – but my NBA Live 2003 roster updates definitely needed more attention in that area. Put it this way: if Melo is an 81 Overall, then Scottie Pippen shouldn’t be 83!

I’m sure it’s no shocking revelation that LeBron James is the last player in that roster who is still active as of 2024, and to that point, he’s not an original player in NBA Live 2003. That raises the question: which original player was the last one active in the NBA? Thanks to his single game return with the Boston Celtics in 2022, that distinction goes to Joe Johnson! As far as players who debuted in NBA Live 2003 as rookies in the default roster, Nene is the longest-tenured, as he played until 2019 and was still on Houston’s roster in 2020. Other original players in NBA Live 2003 that played until the 2020s include Vince Carter, Jamal Crawford, and Tyson Chandler.

Something that you’ve no doubt noticed in the screenshots of my 2004 season roster updates for NBA Live 2003 is that newly-added players such as LeBron, Melo, and so on don’t have their real faces. Instead, I crafted them as best I could with the in-game face creation tools. You’ll have also noticed that LeBron and Melo are sporting some outdated jerseys, rather than the uniforms that heralded new eras in Cleveland and Denver upon their arrival. As previously mentioned, at the time, my current roster mods didn’t include any art updates, from faces and jerseys to courts and logos. They were just basic updates for the new season, without completely overhauling the game.

There were a couple of reasons for this. Given that I and most other people in the community at that time were on dialup or otherwise slow connections, it still wasn’t feasible to distribute what were then considered very large roster packages. Even the fantastic NBA Live Street 2003 mod was broken up into several parts to make it easier to download. I also didn’t have a working relationship with a lot of the people who were making faces, courts, logos, and jerseys, thus collaborations were unlikely. We were also used to barebones current roster mods at that time, as it was assumed that most people would source other updates and add them to their preferred roster.

Beyond that, I was continuing those roster updates for NBA Live 2003 primarily as a courtesy. I’d moved on to playing and modding NBA Live 2004, making the 2003 rosters a legacy release for people who hadn’t bought the new game for whatever reason. This would also explain the lack of detailed ratings updates, though in all fairness to my younger self, I still could’ve taken more pride in that aspect. With that being said, I did take care in creating faces for the new players, so it’s not as though there wasn’t any effort in the roster. Had I collaborated with some modders who were making faces and other updates though, I might not have burned out on the project.

Then again, I’d soured on NBA Live 2003 by that point. The ability to tweak sliders rather than ratings for better performance was a preferable solution, and fewer people were clamouring for NBA Live 2003 roster updates. It’s why – to some extent – I do understand why EA and 2K end online support for their titles. Just as it reaches a point where not enough people are still playing the games to justify the cost and effort of maintaining a game’s servers, dwindling interest in old titles makes it tough to stay motivated to mod them. That’s not to say you shouldn’t – I’m all for retro modding – but it’s impossible to continue modding until every last person is done with a game.

Considering that it’s been twenty years and there’s a lot of tedious work that goes into creating regular current roster updates, I don’t have vivid memories of every moment of working on those rosters for NBA Live 2003. That goes for so many of the mods I’ve made over the years, but with several seasons’ worth of rosters for multiple NBA Live titles on PC, the mundane tasks and moments don’t stick in my memory. It’s kind of like trying to remember what you had for dinner on a specific day a few weeks ago, or a routine task at work! However, vague memories of working on the rosters, and the satisfaction of releasing the updates, do come back when I fire them up again.

And yes, like any other creative work, you notice ways that you could’ve done better. I’ve already mentioned the ratings, but glancing at some of the lineups, some mistakes immediately jump out at me. I’ve got Antoine Walker starting at centre in Dallas; it should be Dirk. Mind you, the lack of in-depth rotation management did sometimes call for intentional inaccuracies, though I’d suggest I just messed up there. As an end-of-regular season update, some lineups include players who finished the year starting, but were bench players for most of the season; not inaccurate, but not ideal for a new Franchise game. It’s why I began including “Uninjured Rosters” in future updates.

However, I was doing the best I could with the resources at my disposal. Basketball Reference didn’t launch until I was wrapping up my roster updates for NBA Live 2003, and while NBA.com and other sites were around before that, it’s much easier to find information nowadays. Even so, I was including players in those rosters who didn’t see any action – such as Icelandic guard Jon Stefansson, and Shaquille O’Neal’s cousin Josh Moore – as well as accounting for players who briefly latched on with a team for a benchwarming stint. I can spot ways that those roster updates could’ve been better, but I’m also reminded of how much time and effort that I still put into them.

Firing up these old roster updates for NBA Live 2003 is undeniably nostalgic, as it was still the heyday of NBA Live modding/patching. It’s also somewhat melancholic though, as it was a challenging time for me. Tensions in the community and some animosity towards me made running the NLSC unpleasant at times. I’ll take my share of the responsibility there, but there was some nastiness from people who were eager to see the NLSC fail, and to pounce on any mistake I made in order to embarrass me. We were also dealing with the challenges of being hosted by GameSpy, culminating in some extended downtime that wasn’t our fault, and did us absolutely no favours.

Still, while there were difficult moments, I’m glad that I stuck it out – there were times that I came very close to quitting – and that I had the creative outlet of making roster updates for NBA Live 2003 and other games. There are a few reasons why I don’t feel as passionate about the NBA these days, but I can absolutely trace the beginnings of feeling disconnected back to when I stopped making current roster updates for games in early 2013. When you’re constantly referring to roster listings, creating players, and updating lineups, you get to know the league from top to bottom. My enthusiasm for the NBA inspired me to create rosters, but creating them likewise fed that enthusiasm.

Needless to say, looking back now, there are things that I do differently; both as far as running the NLSC, and handling any roster updates. Nevertheless, it’s nostalgic going back to a time when barebones roster updates were not yet outdated, because of the simple novelty of getting the new rookie crop and updated lineups into the previous year’s game. It’s undoubtedly why I’m more enthusiastic about minimalist modding than gamers whose introduction to the hobby came with more in-depth projects. I remember a time when we made the most of the in-game customisation tools, and current roster updates encouraged everyone to source their preferred art updates.

At the same time, I’m glad we moved past that. Sharing work allowed for far better rosters, and using proper faces rather than ones sculpted in Create-a-Player saved me a ton of time. Like the games themselves, modding has come a long way. To that point, it’s important to recognise and appreciate the early days, as they ultimately laid the foundation for what was to come. 2024 seemed such a long way off then, and 2004 was a long time ago now, but sometimes it only feels like yesterday. Although many mods have been lost to time, it’s awesome that we can still revisit old favourites with the projects that we’ve preserved…even if I do end up nitpicking my own work!

The post Wayback Wednesday: Revisiting My NBA Live 2003 Roster Updates appeared first on NLSC.